Newsflash:

Texas Hold 'em Updates

This week on Xbox Live® Arcade Wednesdays, look for a full-featured update to one of the most popular games on the service—Texas Hold 'em. We've listened to our community and as a result, a host of features and improvements have been added to Texas Hold 'em to speed up play, eliminate cheating, and ensure proper competition.

New updates and enhancements have been added.

As a result, the online multi-player leaderboards will be reset to eliminate the inflated scores that currently appear. In a future update in early 2007, we'll be adding Xbox Live Vision Camera support as well.

The update will be available for download on Xbox Live Arcade for Xbox 360™ beginning Wednesday, November 29, after 0800 GMT (1:00 A.M. Pacific Time).

Check out the full list of the new features and changes in the Texas Hold 'em update: 

Features
Game-play has been sped up:

• Post the blind and play right away! Start playing immediately when joining a table by posting the big blind, rather than having to wait for the blind to come to you.
• New 'Away' mode: Set your status to 'Away' and hands will be auto-folded and blinds auto-posted until you return.
• New 'Auto-boot' mode: Players who continuously let the timer expire (more than three times in a game) will be booted from the table.
• Faster overall pacing: Timers and messaging durations have been adjusted to speed up gameplay among experienced players, but still allow novice players plenty of time to play.
• Improved blind structure: Initial blinds, as well as blind increases, are now more proportional to table stakes, ensuring more meaningful increases during gameplay.
• Matchmaking improvements: You are no longer matched into games you cannot afford.
• Improved interface controls: Enjoy improvements to controls, such as increasing/decreasing stake amounts.
• Leaderboard display: Your full winnings and rank are now properly displayed.
• Art and text improvements: Game art and spelling issues have been addressed.
• Online exploits addressed: Certain known exploits that enabled cheating have been addressed. As a result, the online multi-player leaderboards will be reset to eliminate inflated scores as a result of these exploits.

For more information, be sure to visit http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/livearcade.